but there was this rock hard sub-game where you had to match a criminal's picture with his indentikit photo which I could rarely get past, and the game had no saves so I just had to play the first level over and over.

Football Manager, Ghostbusters, Daley Thompson's Decathalon,
Pole Position, Jet Set Willy, Back 2 Skool, Skooldaze, Jet Set Willy, Manic Miner, and probably a lot more taped off my cousin. My abiding memories is that aged 5 i started listening to musich which has stayed with me until now with my brother who is 9 years older than me. Listening to The Smiths, New Order, Talking heads, Fine Young Cannibals, The Communards and Bronski Beat whilst sat on the floor adjusting the volume on the tape player to make a game load. I much preferred the Amiga though!

lots of great football games, including a text-based one where you had to make multiple-choice decisions ("A: pass forward, B: pass back, C: overhead kick") and one where you just had chances to shoot and then played the pools between games.
Oh my god I can't remember any more

Fantastic Mr Fox
How To Be A Complete Bastard
The Great Escape
The Land That Time Forgot
Quest for the Golden Eggcup
Bloodwych
Fatworm Blows A Sparky

My girlfriend who probably couldn't tell you what a Spectrum looked like or do an impression of the loading noise used the phrase 'blows a sparky' yesterday. This means she's been successfully assimilated.

I had "The Transformers" and had no idea what I was supposed to be doing (the cassette cover I had was a print out label of the little silver paper you had with the Spectrum printer). It was just awsome to run around and trandsform from robot to car/truck/plan and then back again though!

The one where you played as Bart and you had x-rays goggles to see if people walking down the street were either humans or aliens disguised as humans. In the first level you could get a coin and prank call Moe from the phone box outside his bar.

The Biz, a game made by Chris Sievey (aka Frank Sidebottom).
ANECDOTE AHOY: At what I think was 'Frank's' last London gig, I spoke to him (HE DIDN'T HAVE THE HEAD ON) about his game. He was always amazed people knew it. I told him I'd scored a No. 1 single in it. He said he'd never got a No. 1 despite programming the game and knowing how it works. He could've also been saying that just to humour me.

in case we ever need to know who the virgins are. You guys might think you've had sex like a million times since you owned a spectrum. I regret to inform you that you haven't, because you can't be a speccy owner, past or present, and not be a virgin. you're virgins.

meanwhile, the C64 owners are riding fucking awesome choppers, having sex with everything that moves and generally being awesome, all in 16 glorious colours, albeit with a limited number of these in use at any one time in 320x200 mode

Those multi load games that made you load up various stages of the game and then would require you to back to the very start when you got killed (Predator and Platoon were both absolute nightmares)

The migraine inducing loading sequences on any game produced by Firebird.

However these were minor quibbles compared to the absolute joy that the following could bring -

Emlyn Hughes International Soccer
Saboteur I and II
Skool Daze
The Great Escape
The Way Of the Exploding Fist
Glider Rider
Beach Head II
Barry McGuigans Boxing
Hyper Sports
Daley Thompsons Decathalon
Top Gun
Death Wish III (incredibly violent for it's time)
Leaderboard II
Football Manager
More or less any of the Codemasters budget range

And in a precursor to the whole "downloading is killing music" debate you had the simple fact that anyone with access to a double tape deck ghetto blaster could build up an impressive collection of pirated games in an amazingly short time.

He was about 10 and had no interest whatsoever in Football, as in, didn't have a clue about the rules, how the league/points system worked, or the names of more than a handful of teams. But fair play, it did work. Had a loading screen and everything.

He gave a copy to me and my brother who played it about 5 times before getting quickly bored because no matter which team out of the 4 available you picked, you always drew 2-2 with Peterborough.